


Always You and Never Me

by theshipsfirstmate



Series: Trouble Sleeping [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, season 4 spec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:10:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4744145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Same night as "Twisting In My Head" and "Sure Could Use the Rest". Thea POV. It's Oliver and Felicity's first night in the loft and apparently, no one can sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always You and Never Me

_A/N: Not sure about this one. Started it last week, then pushed through and finished it when I got back today. This is also the first time I’ve really written Thea, all feedback is appreciated._

**Always You and Never Me**

Thea hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. But the thing is, she doesn’t really sleep anymore. Most nights she ends up out here in the early hours of the morning, staring out at her city, alone as the darkness above the skyline fades up from black to navy. She used to catch Oliver doing the same thing, but it wasn’t until she went full-vigilante that she understood what it meant to watch over Starling – _Star City_  – in the quiet of nights that are less calming that they used to be.

But tonight, she wasn’t out here alone, and the symbolism isn’t lost on her.

Tonight, she glanced down to see her brother’s… _girlfriend_? (The word feels flimsy, in the same way it had felt flimsy to call Roy her “boyfriend” this last time around. When you live the life they live – the kind of life Thea’s only actually realized she’s living in the last few months, the life her brother’s been living for more than three years now – when you live the kind of lives and die the kind of deaths that they have, the people in your life are far more significant.) on the lower balcony from her usual spot on the private perch off her bedroom.

The other thing they don’t tell you about becoming a reincarnated vigilante is that you don’t sleep much anymore. But it’s not her brother that’s restless tonight it seems, and Thea is surprised to find herself…unsurprised. He had been positively blissful all day, even as he lugged clothes and furniture and god help them probably a thirty boxes of computer equipment that Felicity had called “a good start.”

Her brother had a smile fixed firmly on his face since they started moving in, a smile she’d place a good bet was still there as he slept silently. He was close to old carefree Ollie as Thea had seen in four long years. His…partner, on the other hand, she was a tougher nut to crack, though it wasn’t hard to see, even from up here, that something was weighing heavy on her mind.

Growing up in high society in general and the Queen family in specific has always made Thea wary of trusting almost everyone, but especially the women who were interested in her brother. At their worst, they were gold-digging floozies and at their absolute best, they were Laurel Lance. But of course, all that’s a thousand years ago now.

Ollie Queen never had an anchor. She regrets the nautical metaphor, but it’s the truth. Her big brother had been shiftless, aimless, and reckless since she was old enough to understand what those words meant. He had lied and cheated and partied and she had admired him and not just because she had to, genetically. For the formative years of Thea’s life, he had been both a bad influence and an inspiration.

And then he had been gone for five long years, and she had fallen totally apart.

Then she had gotten a new brother, back from the dead but different, like some twisted version of a zombie movie. This brother was stoic where Ollie had been goofy, serious where Ollie had been carefree, grey where Ollie had been sunny. He was alive, but he was someone else.

When she learned about the Arrow, everything made sense. The flakiness, the seriousness, the unexplained injuries. Everything made sense, except the sunny blonde that was suddenly always by his side but never any closer. At least, that’s all she was at first. As time went on, Thea had noticed how different Felicity was from any other woman she had seen with her brother. And not just because she was a part of his “night job.”

No, what was different about Felicity was how different she made her brother. She cracked through the stoicism with quips and accidental entendres, lifted his seriousness with a kiss to the cheek, and colored in all the grey that had seeped into his life with a rainbow of wardrobe, nails and lips.

If Ollie was her first brother and the Arrow was her second, she thinks, “Oliver” is her third brother. Because of Felicity, and who she is to him now, and because of how she’s the first person to call him that regularly except for their mother. His eyes do something different, every time she calls him that, Thea’s noticed. But it’s nothing compared to the way he looks when he says…

“Felicity?”

The blonde’s shoulders relax the tiniest bit, but she doesn’t turn as her brother comes up behind her on the balcony and drapes himself around her completely. She turns only halfway in his arms, and Thea can’t quite make out her face but she’d bet the house that she’s not meeting his eyes.

“I’m okay.” One thing Thea noticed early on is that these two seem to use about 50% of the words necessary to have a conversation. They say so much in the looks, in their silences, sometimes just in different inflections of each other’s names. “I just couldn’t sleep.”

“I told you we could get our own place.” His words cause Thea to instinctively step back and press herself against the glass-paneled door to remain concealed, but Oliver doesn’t sense her and she tells herself it’s not jealousy that twists in her gut.

“It’s not that, I swear,” Felicity protests quickly, and somehow Thea can tell she means it. “I want to be here, I want you to be here. As much family as possible.”

The tension that flooded Thea’s body a second ago is gone at the words, and she’s thankful that she and her brother are still so tightly linked, because he covers the sound of her sigh with one of his own.

“It was just too hot and I couldn’t…there’s a lot going on up here, you know?” Felicity babbles and Thea watches Oliver snatch her hand out of the air and pull her the rest of the way around into his arms. It’s like magic, the way she calms him, the way the he relaxes into her when he presses a kiss to her forehead.

“I do know,” Oliver smiles down at Felicity. She likes this smile better than she ever liked any of Ollie’s, Thea thinks, and the thought flits in that she might like this brother best of all. “I’ve known that for years. Come back to bed.”

“I will,” Felicity nearly whispers. “Just have to think through…some things.”

He leaves her to it, with one last kiss. This brother is patient where Ollie was reckless and caring where the Arrow was single-minded. This brother is no longer shiftless or hell-bent on self-sacrifice, he has found his true north.

This brother is apparently also vulnerable, she realizes when he pokes his head back out the balcony door a few moments later.

“Think through some things…”

“Oliver, no.” Yet again, they need so few words. Felicity crosses to him as he steps back out onto the balcony. They meet in the middle, like always. “Not us, never”

“Not never,” Oliver’s so quick to jump in, so quick to reassure her, but it's not placating, it's absolute honesty.  “I know this won’t always be as perfect as it has been, as it was on our trip.” He grins, but Thea can still see his vulnerability from here. “But you’d…you’ll tell me, when it is, right?”

“Of course, Oliver. Of course I would.”

Goddamn it, they love each other, Thea thinks as Felicity presses herself up to kiss him, the tension finally melting out of her. When it deepens, that’s Thea’s cue to slip back into her room, but she can’t help but smile to herself with she hears Felicity’s sleepy voice drift up as she softly slides the door closed.

“My hero.”


End file.
